What is a Data Availability Statement (DAS)? |
|
|
A data availability statement (DAS) is an individual section of a scientific article offset from the main body of text that explains if or how another individual can access a study’s research data. Including a DAS in a manuscript helps confirm a study, promotes stronger research transparency, and ultimately improves trust in science. While not required by all journals or funders, the DAS improves the manuscript quality and supports the citability of the data.
A DAS is not only for open, accessible data, though. There are circumstances in which data availability is neither feasible nor responsible, such as in the case of protecting human subjects or other personally identifiable information. But in a case such as that, a DAS can be used to further explain why the author(s) decided to limit their data availability. Where does the DAS go?
The DAS should be clearly stated in either the beginning or end of the manuscript sectioned with a heading such as, “Availability of Data and Materials,” or simply, “Data Availability Statement.” The section will be distinct from other supplementary materials, so the title of the section must explicitly mention data. What kind of data must be described in a DAS?
Your DAS references any of the research data needed to replicate or reuse the work. This includes, but is not limited to the following forms: Data you collected, data you downloaded and analyzed (but did not manipulate), and data you generated. |
How to Write a DAS |
|
|
The length and wording of the DAS will vary depending on a number of factors, but a good DAS consists of four core elements:
Note: Because most DAS will be published in a web-based format, include hyperlinks wherever possible. |
|
Data collected
These are the data collected or used to help answer the study objective. Listing this/these datasets help the reader quickly understand what they will find in the dataset and is particularly helpful when dealing with multiple datasets. |
|
Where can the reader find the datasets? This can be both physical and digital datasets.
|
|
|
Where exactly is the repository stored? Include a link to your repository to help the reader find your dataset more easily.
|
|
|
What are the specific PIDs needed to find, cite, and access the data? This may be represented as digital object identifiers (DOIs), reference numbers, ARK, HANDL, PURL, etc.
|
|
|
Basic DAS Template |
|
The dataset [title or type] used in this study are publicly available online in the [repository name] [link to data/repository] repository: [PIDs].
All datasets used in this study are publicly available through an open repository.
The example above states the availability status of the data used in the study, but it is lacking all specific identifiers needed to locate and identify said data.
Good example of a DAS
All cell-type transcriptome data are available in the NCBI SRA database under accession number PRJNA412708. Additional supplementary data are available from the Dryad Digital Repository: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hp2fr73. (Sogabe, Hatleberg, Kocot, et al. 2019)
As outlined in the graphic below, this DAS includes the necessary information for identifying and locating all data used in the study.
|
In this article, we discussed the anatomy of a DAS when the data is openly available in a public repository. If you would like further examples of different types of DAS, check out Springer Nature’s article here, the University of Bath’s article here, and the American Meteorological Society’s article here.
|
|
This post is part of our series Research Bites. Come back every month for a new installment.
|
Data Availability Statements Cited |
|
Duncan EM, Davies A, Brooks A, Chowdhury GW, Godley BJ, Jambeck J, et al. (2020) Message in a bottle: Open source technology to track the movement of plastic pollution. PLoS ONE 15(12): e0242459. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242459
Finkel, O.M., Salas-González, I., Castrillo, G. et al. A single bacterial genus maintains root growth in a complex microbiome. Nature 587, 103–108 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2778-7
Shi, H., Shi, Q., Grodner, B. et al. Highly multiplexed spatial mapping of microbial communities. Nature (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2983-4
Sogabe, S., Hatleberg, W.L., Kocot, K.M. et al. Pluripotency and the origin of animal multicellularity. Nature 570, 519–522 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1290-4
Varela R, Rodríguez-Díaz L, deCastro M (2020) Persistent heat waves projected for Middle East and North Africa by the end of the 21st century. PLoS ONE 15(11): e0242477. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242477
NEWSLETTER
Stay up to date on Ripeta
By signing up to our mailing list you are welcoming the latest news, events and insights into your inbox.
